Economic and Social Council

ISTANBUL, 9 April — Forestry and woodland management were critical to tackling a number of key sustainable development challenges and the most effective way to integrate related issues into the post-2015 international development agenda would be to create a cross-cutting goal on natural resources, the United Nations Forum on Forests heard today as it continued the Ministerial Segment of its tenth session.

Five seemingly ordinary people who have done extraordinary work for their communities and forests are being recognized as “Forest Heroes” at a special “Forests for People” award ceremony that will take place on Wednesday in Istanbul. The awards are being presented as 197 member States meet at the tenth session of the United Nations Forum on Forests.

ISTANBUL, 8 April — As the United Nations Forum on Forests opened its two-week session in Istanbul this morning, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan implored the developed world to end unbridled, irresponsible growth and commit to sustainably manage the world’s forests before it was too late.

Current global crises impacted young people especially hard, but today’s youth had the energy and ideas to change the world, said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as he welcomed youth delegates to the Economic and Social Council’s Youth Forum, convened under the theme “Shaping tomorrow’s innovators: Leveraging science, technology, innovation and culture for today’s youth”.

An infusion of youth perspectives — drawn from such events as today’s Economic and Social Council Youth Forum on science and technology and a newly launched online campaign known as “Innovate Your Future” — would bring a “real renewal” to the work of the United Nations, said Council President Néstor Osorio of Colombia at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

With youth comprising almost 20 per cent of the global population and being among the most affected by global economic, social and environmental challenges, the United Nations Economic and Social Council will organize a youth forum at New York Headquarters to explore opportunities in today’s world for young people aged between 15 and 24 years.

Ending all violence against women and girls “must be a priority, not an option” for achieving human rights, social cohesion and sustainable development, declared the Commission on the Status of Women this evening, capping its fifty-seventh annual session with the adoption of a set of much-anticipated agreed conclusions that outlined a strong global framework for prevention and response.

The Commission on the Status of Women wrapped up its general debate today amid calls from civil society groups to focus more substantively on protecting the women and girls whose rights were most often under-represented — or excluded — from the very international human rights instruments intended to protect them.

A sharp, deeply embedded distinction between the so-called “private” family sphere of women and the “public” market sphere of men — coupled with imbalanced caregiving responsibilities — threatened to hamper the development of both women and societies around the world, stressed panellists addressing the fifty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women today.

Men had a crucial role to play — as fathers, brothers, husbands and public advocates — in both speaking out against violence against women and girls, and in defying the destructive stereotypes that served to normalize gender inequality, delegates stressed today, as the Commission on the Status of Women moved into week two of its fifty-seventh session.